1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic endoscope for inserting a video-scope into the stomach or other body cavity and displaying an image of the body cavity on a monitor for examination.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is known an electronic endoscope which can display a patient's name or date along with the image of a body cavity on a screen. In this electronic endoscope, the current date is read from a central processing unit (CPU) to enable the date of examination to be displayed on the screen by numerals in the order of the year, month, and day. Further, considering the differences in how dates are read in other countries, the display of the date “98/12/10” can be changed to a display of “12/10/98” (month, day, and year) or “10/12/98” (day, month, and year). Further, along with the date, the image of the body cavity (still image) is stored in an electronic file such as a magneto-optic disc, a magnetic disk and so on. After that, when the image of the body cavity is reproduced and displayed, the date of examination is confirmed on the screen.
The date to be displayed on the screen is displayed in completely the same color. Therefore, in some cases it is not possible for one viewing the screen to clearly determine the month and day in the date displayed on the screen. In particular, when storing the image of the body cavity along with the date in the image storage device and then much later displaying the image of the body cavity on the screen, it is difficult for one viewing the screen to distinguish between the month and day. For example, when the image of the body cavity is stored and the date “12/10/98” (Dec. 10, 1998) had been displayed on the screen, if the image of the body cavity is reproduced and displayed after several months, it cannot be determined by one viewing the screen if the stored date is December 10 or October 12 and therefore the stored date is liable to be misread.
Further, after the year 2000 (in particular 2000 to 2031), if the year is displayed by the last two digits, determination by the viewer between the year, month, and day will become even more difficult. For example, when displaying the date “02/12/10” for Dec. 10, 2002 on the screen, determination of the year, month, and day will be difficult.